


After the Dragon

by Zoya1416



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: 2nd chapter with prostitution referenced, F/M, First Time, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Memories of a Not-So-Glorious-May 25th, Vetinari Saves Someone, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:17:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2047674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lot of V/V slash on AO3—I've written some myself. It's fun to imagine the energy of hate between them turned to the energy of passion. But there is very little Vetinari/Sibyl ship. Why couldn't their friendship bloom into something more? It's an AU set after Guards, Guards. I couldn't make Sam disappear, or make him have never existed, so that left only a few possibilities. This is one.</p><p>COMPLETE--Ch.2 and 3 posted 2/8/15</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burns

**Author's Note:**

> All Pratchett's.

“You could not have done anything to help him. He was trying to save you.”

The voice was cool, quiet, and logical, but kind. Its owner was sitting in a side chair at Lady Sybil Ramkin's Manor; a tall thin man in a tidy black suit. He had the manner of someone who was prepared to sit in the chair forever, resting at the side of the huge bed with pink bedclothes.

“Why didn't you come, Havelock? You could have saved him.” 

The large figure in the bed started to roll over to talk to him, then stopped. She had burns all down the right side of her body, and she'd been attended to both by the best doctor on the Ankh side of the city, and by Dowager Countess Brenda Rodley, who brought her a large pot of evil smelling green cream they both swore by as dragon breeders. The Dowager Countess and several other dragon breeders had succeeded in reclaiming the majority of Sybil's swamp dragon stables. The missing ones might have escaped to breed in the wild, or more likely, exploded in all the furor. Sybil hadn't been able to help them as she'd been in a coma for a day. She'd been flipped over by the great dragon's flame and had struck her head on a piece of masonry. She'd fallen behind the masonry, which kept her alive when the dragon flamed again. Samuel Vimes had died in that second blast, found with his armor fused to his body.

“I think that is not the case, Sybil. My talents are not in the running and chasing arena.”

“With the great dragon, I think everyone should have been in the running and chasing arena. Even though it was magnificent, it killed so many with the fires it started. It would have killed me in my chains. He hacked them off, and then it attacked again, and flamed him.”

She was crying now, a choking snort which was the type of crying done by people who haven't cried in a long time and didn't mean to start now. He handed her a clean handkerchief.

“I truly wish that I could have been in two places at once. Wonse was still at large, and I was the only one who could bring him down. If I had let him go, he would have summoned another dragon, or fomented another revolution to harm Ankh Morpork. I brought down the mind behind the dragon.”

“I thought it was the Watch that did that. The boy Carrot rushed in and threw the book at him, as I understood it. You still didn't do anything!”

Havelock Vetinari looked at the crying figure in the large bed. It wasn't possible to make her understand at this point that his continued life and Lupine Wonse's non-continued life were needed to rescue Ankh Morpork from the havoc of the dragon's rule, not from the physical dragon. It was all very well to overthrow the tyrant, but then the next day people would complain that the trash was piling up since the tyrant was overthrown.

It had distressed him greatly that he hadn't been able to run to Sybil's side, but if he had, Ankh Morpork might be missing both the Captain of the Night Watch, and the Patrician of the city. The tiny Night Watch, four men in all, had done more to fight the dragon than all his Palace Guards. Something needed to be changed there, and if Captain Vimes had lived, it could have begun with him. He thought that the boy Carrot had great potential, but he'd been in Ankh-Morpork only a few weeks. He needed experience. 

He switched his mind back to the current problem. Sybil was still weeping slowly. He moved his chair closer to her and held her hand. That was all he could do for her now.

“Come over here and rub my back,” she said, still sobbing a little.

“Pardon?” He was truly startled. No woman had invited him into her bed in decades, and he wasn't sure what his life-long friend wanted.

“Come around here to the other side of the bed, Havelock. I'm not burned here, and I just want—to be close to someone.”

In the end he lay down on top of her coverlet, holding her hand as she cried herself to sleep. When he left for the Palace in the morning, he promised her he'd be back again.  
After the third night, after hearing the complaints about security from his new Secretary, Rufus Drumknott, he brought a watchman with him to stand guard. He was giving Carrot special experience, bringing him away from the Palace Guard, talking to him about what the City really needed.

For two weeks he lay beside her as she healed, refusing to listen to gossip mongers who didn't know how badly Sybil had been damaged. She talked to him over and over about the gallant captain, and he waited patiently. She was talking about the loss of a new lover, a first love, which had died before it even started. He was her friend, always. If she wanted him to be anything else, she would have to tell him.

After three weeks she rolled over to him and held him with her eyes. He brought up her hand and kissed it. She reached for him. 

It had all gone so slowly he scarcely realized when he was trapped. He had lain beside her, chastely, had kissed her hand, chastely, had gently held her body, chastely, because she was still healing. There was a moment of mental struggle the night when she opened the coverlet and let him scoot next to her. It was ludicrous, because he was still wearing his black suit, and she was in her nightdress. He couldn't strip—“It will be alright,” she said softly, and he pulled off his shirt, leaving on his undershirt, trousers, and underclothes. In a bit he succumbed to the inevitable and pulled off his trousers underneath her warm covers, folding them neatly by touch, then reaching over to a bedside table to place them carefully.

He still was afraid to touch the burned areas on the right side of her body. They were healing, but were still pink and tender. So he kissed her left shoulder and her left clavicle and her left cheek. She was an enormous woman, and he had admired her ever since they met in Cotillion when each was eleven years old. He was tall enough, with long enough arms, to partner her, and somehow even then he convinced her to let him lead. None of the other boys of their class ever did.

He kissed her neck, and her throat, tasting the clean woman. She'd been able to get out of bed to take a bath at last, with the help of two maids who steered her straight back to bed. By this time he was used to carrying a small valise with him, working each night until she wanted him. Ankh Morpork was interested in all their doings, and tried to bribe the staff. 

He had no idea where this was leading, but for once in his life he let himself float on the river of the present, not planning things out in five dimensions at once.

He'd brought a larger carpetbag tonight, hesitating in his now-deserted room at the Palace before he closed his pajamas in it, then shrugged. In for a penny—he simply didn't want to sleep anymore in his small clothes. His black pajamas felt better. But when he slipped in beside her it seemed different. Was different. This was now the bed of two people who wanted to be with each other, not with one occupant and a guest.

“You're quiet tonight,” she said softly, and he laughed. 

“Am I noisy other nights? You have never complained to me.”

“No, but I can hear you thinking. It's not the same.”

“It is not the same, Sybil, because we are clothed as bedpartners, and I'm not a guest here. I am here because you want me to be”—he looked deeply into her dark blue eyes—and because I want to be here with you. I have—wanted to be here for so long. Be here next to you.”

She stared at him. He had never spoken of his feelings.

“You wanted to be with me and never asked? Havelock, we're in our forties. When did you plan to tell me?”

He shrugged his thin and elegant shoulders for answer and leaned over her, pressing her gently into the mattress. For once he didn't talk in words. His black-silk clad leg pressed between her thighs, and she let him move the nightdress-covered limbs apart. He kissed her hair, her mouth, her neck, and then drifted down to her covered breast and nuzzled it.

For her, the novel feeling was fabulous. Sybil had been chosen for the dragon's meal because she was virginal at forty-something. No one had been beside her in bed ever before, and she had been afraid to let him close, thinking every morning that she would tell him not to come back, and waiting impatiently every afternoon for him to come.

His mouth was still asking a question. His hands were not chaste now, but running around her breast and down over her belly, caressing what she thought of as a huge mound. His hand reached down her belly, roving over her upper thighs.

“Mmm. You are so much woman. So much to hold, to feel. I can't wait to see you and hold you and touch you properly. You need to be touched properly. I would touch you as you have never been touched before, as gently as you want me to be. Help me open your nightdress. I'm not going to grab you.”

She started to answer him, and then realized that the words were meant to carry her over to the place where there were no words. His low murmurs were meant only to encourage, to soothe, to keep her peaceful and unafraid, the way she gentled some new scared dragon. 

“So beautiful, I want to touch your breasts. I've dreamed about them for years, always imagined how they'd look...when I saw you at parties, I always wished I could draw down your bodice and rest my head between them. Your nightdress has buttons here. I'm going to undo them now.” He did so, and she gasped at the cool air touching her breasts. When he put his warm mouth over one, it only emphasized the coldness of the other, and she reached to cover herself again. His hand met hers and drew it away gently. He pulled her nightdress slightly closed and switched his attention to the other breast, to warm it.

It was all he could do to be slow. For decades his desires had not troubled him often. The city was his mistress, the one he poured everything into. If he had a rare evening which troubled him, his own hand took care of things. The images he used to comfort himself, however, were of Lady Sybil, imagining himself magicked away to her side. To be here now, here in the flesh, was nearly more than he could stand. He didn't want to wait. He wanted to devour her as he had in his imagination, turn her, press her hard, open her, enter, take her as fast as he wished.

Now in the flesh he both wanted and did not want to move too fast. He wanted to savor her and he did not want her scared. So he nuzzled her breasts gently, kissing, licking, with a hand running down her side, petting her rather than seizing her. 

Then she ran her own hand over his pajama shirt and twitched open the buttons.  
His turn to twitch as cold air was brushed away by warm lips on his clavicles. He reached down and placed her hand on his nipple. “It feels good here. To be touched here. Easy.” She would have applied all her enthusiasm to that one spot.

 

“I want to feel all of you. All.” She brushed his shirt apart and caressed down the middle of his chest until she reached the pajama bottoms, and then used both strength and surprise to pull them off. She didn't lay them out neatly, but tossed them over the side of the big bed. No matter. 

“Uhhh—I had always imagined that by the time things reached this stage, I would have disrobed the lady first.” His voice was betraying him and not steady. Fear? Excitement? The simple shuddering of his body as it lay open?

“Imagined? It's not the first time for you, too?”

“No. Not the first. But the first in a very long time, and the first so”—beautiful, he was going to say, although the other women had been beautiful. Reciprocal—not commercial—was another thing he wasn't going to say. “The one I've imagined holding for so long.”  
The pink sheets were slipping away as he removed more and more of her nightdress. 

Then they had each other naked, and words could not follow their movements fast enough. Hands in each others hair. His arm under her head, as she reached up and held his hand. He was holding her hand still this way, keeping her from brushing away his other hand. His other hand playing with her mons, fingers stretching down and separating her. His hand to his mouth for moisture, to lay his fingers into her further, then drawing back with moisture on them from inside her. Her free hand raking down his back, his fingers gently exploring further to capture the central nub of her pleasure. She was rocking, he was rocking, he lay with both his legs inside her thighs, and now she was begging him to come inside. He toyed with her a moment, pressing inward a little, then withdrawing to tease her. The third short stroke was interrupted by her large and eager hand pressing down onto his buttock. She essentially deflowered herself, pressing his buttocks to her while raising her hips to meet him, opening to his shaft. 

It was only by forcing every feeling out of his mind that he could wait to try to take care of her. No, that wasn't going to work. He'd just have to come back up for more, as his rapid strokes finished him.

In a moment, when he surfaced, he was conscious of her blue eyes looking at him with a mixture of expressions. She had an odd curve to her lips, questioning. It didn't take a master to realize that she was thinking, “Is this all they've talked about? I wonder why people talk of it so much then. All right, I'll get up and make notes for the morn...” He silenced her thoughts by possessing her mouth, then her breasts, licking them less and sucking the nipples harder. Nibbling a bit with his teeth. Mouth busy with the breasts, he let his thumb catch the small firmness at the top of her lips. She twinged a bit. There. And if he hadn't made love in a long time, or bought sex, or whatever he'd done, he had never had to worry about a partner's pleasure. 

He did tonight. He started again, and soon she was jittering back and forth, and he wasn't quite sure what was working, until she reached up for his cock, feeling that it wasn't quite hard, pulling on it inexpertly but enthusiastically, and then pulling him inside a second time. 

“You wanton woman! Why do you think you need to help me? I'm here for you. I can take you by myself, you know.” Laughing so she'd know for sure he was teasing.

Mumbled. “but I wanted you then 'n' didn't want to wait.”

Here he did stretch out his stroking, able to go much longer, but she was getting ready.  
He could feel the great thighs tightening, waiting, thrusting up again. No coyness now, no sad virgin wanting the man who had died and left her alone, but calling the name of the man who was here with her now. Now. NOW! Her head whipped from side to side and she gaped at him, open-mouthed. Then a groan, not a ladylike groan. A growl, really, indistinct. 

Then she was still. Eyes closed. 

“Ohhhh,” she said. “So—that's what it's supposed to be like.”

“You didn't ever—please yourself?”

A general shrugging, which, as he was still on top of her, felt like a soft earthquake.

“Didn't feel like that. More like, 'pop,' and I felt better. Not like thissss...” she was dropping to sleep. 

He rolled off her, turning her onto her back again, finding her nightdress and pulling it over her—much more difficult than the other way, but he persevered.

He reached over for his pajamas, could only find the bottom, and called it a night.

Or almost a night. He had a few seconds to wonder what they would do in the future. He had to live in the Patrician's Palace. He had to be there for business which would not wait until morning. She would not, he thought, ever leave Ramkin Manor, and the little dragons. But maybe there could be times in between, where they met. Where they touched. And he knew he would touch her again. That she, Sybil Ramkin, could have been pulled from her grief by him, Havelock the cold Patrician, who wasn't as cold as most people thought, was a miracle. SHE was a miracle for him. He slipped over into sleep in the broad pink bed.


	2. Double Standard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vetinari miscalculates his new lover.

The next week was the most wonderful and amazing of his life. He spent every night with Sibyl, as they explored each other with passion and joy. She never seemed shy with him, and joined in the bed activities with verve and great enthusiasm. He had never laughed, that he could remember, since he was a child, and had rarely smiled. Seeing his parents killed in front of him by a runaway dray horse had whipped away all his happiness. But with Sibyl he smiled, chuckled, and even grinned at the absurdity of all their tangled limbs sprawling together. The pink bed was getting a merry workout. 

Everyone in the house from Willikins down to the bootboy was happy with them. Sybil had never seemed unhappy, but dragons had occupied all her thoughts, and she was vaguely polite to her staff without real interaction. But when Vetinari and Sybil surfaced in the morning, smiling fondly at each other, the cook was very pleased to cook them grand breakfasts. He ate only a bite, but was happy to see her recovered and eating with gusto.

At the end of the week he presented her with a gift. She opened it and drew out a soft gray helmet-like hat. Questioning, she looked at him.

“I had Leonard of Quirm make it. There is a stone which grows in fibers and can be sewn or weaved. It's called firestone because nothing made of it will burn. I thought you might like it for your hair, under the helmet, when you are with your dragons.”

She smiled a little self-consciously, touching the short chestnut curls which had grown back in the weeks she lay recovering.

“I always wear a wig—the dragons flame so much. All of the dragon breeders do.”

“I know, and your wigs are beautiful. But I thought you might enjoy seeing whether your own hair can grow back.”

“You are so thoughtful. I will wear it tomorrow.”

The next week he had long meetings, making up some of the time he'd been away with Sibyl. Everyone gave him knowing glances, which he ignored, and some visitors even dared to question him.

Lord Downey said, “Well, Havelock, when are you going to make an honest woman of her? I hope you won't bring the swamp dragons to the palace. They'll ruin the carpets.” He smirked.

Vetinari stared back, with the icy look which had quelled so many.   
“Pardon? I did not catch what you said. I was wondering how my scorpions are doing.”

Downey looked irritated. “Come on, man. We all know how it is. Sibyl's no beauty, but she's as wealthy as Creosote.”

Only the knowledge that Downey was also a trained assassin kept him from throwing a knife. The image of the pompous boor with a stiletto in his heart allowed him to return to the subject of their appointment.

He was only able to stay with her one night that week, and she seemed more rare and special because of his deprivation. Her hair hadn't gotten singed, and he stroked it softly.

The next couple of weeks he fought back on his schedule. He had always worked long hours; he needed only a few hours sleep at night. He had never needed to get away from work. Now it was different.

He made his way to Ramkin Manor as often as he could. Sybil showed ever more pleasure with him. Previously she had only tolerated his tongue gently probing her mouth, showing no pleasure in it—now she initiated the deep kiss. 

She became more daring in bed; he gasped the first time they were making love and she wrapped her legs around him. Another time when they lay together, she stroked down his back to his ass, then gently squeezed it, questioning him with a look. He nodded, and she took a firmer hold. 

One evening as they lay together he mused. She'd been a virgin, that was clear, but it seemed as if she was trying to make up for forty years all in one go. He'd pulled her up from a cold grief, and somehow created the erotic woman she'd hidden so long.

The night before she'd suggested that they try it with her on top. After a few adjustments, she found a rhythm, and rocked over him. Her lovely big breasts swayed in front of him. She was a joy, she was a treasure. 

He had no idea why he was hesitating to ask her to marry him. 

Tonight they'd both been tired, and had gone to sleep without making love. He fell asleep thinking about their future. He awoke drowsily to find her gently kissing him down his body, from the notch at his neck down across his stomach. She was soft and gentle, and her breath was warm as she kissed his inner thigh.

Then she opened her mouth and took in his cock.

He jerked away from her and lurched up. “No!”

She was kneeling in front of him, big blue eyes confused. “Don't you like it? I thought it would please you.”

“It is, ah, ah—too much. Too—intimate.” Memory was coming back now, and he had no desire at all to give her an explanation.

“Too intimate? But you've done this to me, and it feels wonderful. What's wrong?”

He struggled to find words. “Women of our class—ladies—they don't—we don't do this. How did you even know about this?—you have never done this before?—who put this into your mind?”

She looked stunned at his rejection, but she was honest and forthright.

“Well—I wasn't going to say anything, but Rosie said men liked it.”

“Rosie? Rosie Palm? You talked to her?” He could not control his shock and disgust.

Sibyl sat up, reaching for a blue robe on the bedpost. She'd never covered herself before him since the first night. Now she was changing from soft and confused to angry.

“Yes. Yes I did. You know I'd never been with anyone and didn't know the first thing about sex. She was the only person I could think of who could help me.”

“You went to her establishment in the Shades?” He was sitting up cross-legged and they were glaring at each other. “How could you do that?”

“No, I didn't go there. I asked her to come here. She was very helpful. She showed me pictures”—

His brain froze over the idea of “pictures” and he interrupted her. “So Rosie Palm has been to Ramkin Manor. How your neighbors must be laughing. That will be all over Ankh-Morpork by now!”

He knew he was saying all the wrong things but he couldn't stop, even as he saw Sybil's face growing whiter. He'd thought he was responsible for her blossoming into a practiced lover, but to find out now she'd sought instructions—from Rosie, of all people—it was ghastly.

He'd legitimized the prostitutes, let them call themselves Seamstresses and form a guild, but that was political. He needed their support. Mrs. Palm might be a Guild leader, but she was never invited to any society parties. Even Boggis, the head of the Thieves' Guild, was more respectable.

The most famous virgin in Ankh-Morpork had visited a whore, thinking she would please him. Horrible. He'd never wanted her to—how could she think he would?—although he had very much enjoyed the new ways she'd touched him... 

And there was a memory surfacing—he knew what shame he was recalling. 

Sibyl, now Lady Ramkin of the warrior Ramkins, with a voice like iron and ice water, said, “I think you should leave.”

He was going to have Rosie assassinated. 

Back in the Palace he paced until dawn. There was no possible way he could explain himself to Sibyl. He had done very few things in his life of which he was ashamed, but there was one time...

8888888888

 

It was May 25th, the day of the Glorious Revolution. He had searched half the city, finally taking to rooftops, trying to save John Keel's life. He'd failed, Keel was dead, and he, Havelock Vetinari, assassin, had picked up a lilac branch and put it in his mouth, killing four men. When it was all over, the band had dispersed, and he'd run away. He wasn't part of the lilac boys—he had no affiliations outside the Assassins' Guild. They had no idea he'd frightened Lord Winder to death the evening before. 

But triumph was in the air, there was singing, ale was being offered freely, and he took a mug. Maybe two. He'd walked the length of the Shades, not stumbling at all, at all, his mind whirling. In an alley he thought he saw three men attacking a young girl, and lurched toward her. He quickly saw his mistake when the little prostitute's protector, a fat man in brown trousers and a dirty yellow shirt, who was sitting on a barrel ten feet away, called to him.”

“Hey, squire, easy. You can take your turn like the others.”  
The small figure was on her knees in the filthy alley, back to a dirty wall. Her feet were rough, cracked, and had obviously never worn shoes. She was wearing a brown dress, but her blouse was pulled down to her waist. A man leaned over her, one arm braced on the wall, one bending low to squeeze her breast. He suddenly jerked it. The girl pulled away from him and wiped her mouth. 

Another man stepped up to her. She unbuttoned his trousers. Oh. He understood now. And he watched her. 

It had been a terrible day, with loss and death and killings and blood. He was full of anger and dizzy with ale. But wasn't this how you became a man? (“NO.” A tiny part of his moral brain protested.) Wasn't it that you killed your man and had your woman? (NO!) But he'd never had a woman. Here she was.

This man finished, and the fat man called to him. “Come on, squire. She's two dollars today, usually it's three, but everyone's celebrating.”

He hesitated, appalled, excited despite his scruples. The girl slumped down onto the dirty ground. He wanted to—he could imagine it—no, it was immoral—but he could, he could—he took—one—step—forward—and then her protector pulled her up from her slump, squeezing roughly. “Come on, sweetheart! We're going to get fifty dollars today, easy!”

His mind refused to undo the hideous calculation, and he wished like hell he'd never come along this alley. He couldn't contribute to her degradation. He fumbled with his purse and pressed another ten dollars into her hand.

“Here. Don't make her do so many men.”

The protector laughed. “Hey, now we'll get sixty dollars today!”

It was always a small comfort to him that he'd given her a small knife, hidden under the bills. He'd never known whether she'd used it.

88888888888

Legitimizing the Seamstresses had been a political move, but it had also been an atonement for that day. Fewer women were on the street alone now, and they had their own women protectors in the Agony Aunts.

He shook his head, clearing thoughts of that long-ago day. Sibyl had shocked him tonight, but all she'd done was try to please him. To give him greater joy. He'd turned away from her, berated her, and she might never take him back again. Only now he realized he wanted her forever.


	3. Bowerbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vetinari offers Sybil a gift.

In the next week, there were loud noises on the Palace grounds. There was sawing, hammering, cursing, and pounding. Large carts dumped wood, coal, cement, and tore tracks in the lawns. The public tried to look through the construction fences he'd thrown up, but there were no eyeholes. 

He took the carriage back to Scoone Avenue on a morning which had turned crisp and autumnal. The butler Willikins took his coat, no expression on his face like a proper servant. 

“Please wait in the Slightly Distressed Yellow Parlor, sir. Her ladyship is with the dragons. I will inform her.”

Sibyl didn't play games, and she met him in fifteen minutes, still wearing dragon-keeping gear, and still glaring.

“I believe I was clear before. Go away.”

“Please come to the Palace with me. I want to show you something, and ask your opinion on it.” He did not plead. He did not know how to plead. 

She set her jaw. She was going to refuse, he knew.

“I think you would enjoy seeing this.”

She gave in, and went to change clothes to a day dress, but she let Willikins help her with her coat instead of him.

The Palace grounds had once held stables and a small zoo. Now there was a brick building thirty feet long and twenty wide. He lead her toward it, as anxious as any bowerbird with his flowers and seeds.

The new building had extremely thick walls, and an extremely thin roof. There were forty empty swamp dragon kennels lining a central brick walkway, and the pens were floored in soft gravel. Each pen had its own separate watering trough. A large workroom at the rear opened onto another eight brooding pens, these covered in soft sand. A coal cellar was full, and ceramic shelves held medications—limestone, anthracite, shale, and other minerals. 

She touched the pens, looking at the strength of the doors, evaluating the roof—tin sheeted. 

Finally she turned to him. Her eyes were bright again. 

“Do you like it? Lady Rodley helped me. We can change anything you don't like.”

She was smiling at him, tilting her head. “Aren't you the confident one? I believe there's a step you've skipped here.”

He took her hand and gave her a small box. Inside was a ring with a deep blue sapphire, circled in diamonds. It was hung on a long golden chain.

“I know you can't wear rings while you're with the dragons, but I thought if it had a chain, you could find it easily in your jewelry box.”

She was even more quizzical, trying not to laugh. “Havelock—I still think you're forgetting something.”

He took a deep breath. “Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin, I love you and”—

She continued to smile a little, her mouth quirking.

“And I apologize for being a self-righteous idiot.”

“And an insufferable prig.” 

He glared at her, but repeated her words. “And an insufferable prig.”

“And a hypocrite.” She was determined to take him over, and her eye challenged him. He did not grovel—and—if she kept on—

“And a hypocrite. And I will explain everything to you if you will marry me.”

He had not meant to say the last, but like everyone who came to know Sybil, he was swept away by her honesty, integrity, commonsense, and self assurance. She had opened her heart, and if you let her she could engulf you; the woman was a city.

And eventually, under siege, you did what Ankh-Morpork had always done—unbar the gates, let the conquerors in, and make them your own.

"Sybil, please marry me.”

She pulled him over and kissed him firmly. “Yes. But you don't ever get to judge me again.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Not even about those terrible color schemes you've got on the walls of your parlors?”

“Not even that.” But she giggled.

Epilogue.  
Before they were married, Vetinari told Sybil the sordid tale about the young prostitute, and how he'd given her a knife, all he had to help her. She mused for a minute, and then said, “We could ask Rosie if she knows what happened.”

He was very proud of himself for not wincing when she said 'Rosie.'

The Head of the Seamstresses' Guild made inquiries and found that the girl, named Dotty, had indeed used his gift to free herself of her terrible 'protector,' and had made her way to Mrs. Cleo's, the premier establishment at that time. She begged entrance, and by chance a scullery maid position was open. She peeled vegetables, washed dishes, scrubbed floors, cleaned the rooms, washed all the linens—and never went back out on the streets.


End file.
